Build Your Core Power in Plank Pose

Plank is a foundational pose that teaches you to hold yourself together, giving you the power you need to move through your daily life. Plank will build your abdominal strength and it can also strengthen your arms and keep your wrists healthy. Over time if you continue to practice this pose your upper back and neck posture can improve and you’ll create support for your lower back by learning to engage your abdominals. In order to experience these benefits, it’s important to create a well aligned Plank Pose. Use self-inquiry to help you get there, always checking in with your body.

Generally, people stand and sit in one of two ways: One way is to collapse the chest, round the shoulders, and allow the head to droop forward and down. The other tendency is to jut the ribs forward, press the chest open and shoulders back and lift the head forward and up. A well aligned Plank Pose will find a balance between these two extremes. When you find true alignment in Plank, you create a long line of energy from the top of your head through your hips to your heels. Your strongly engaged thighs and abdominals support your lower back, while your relaxed shoulders and open chest free your neck. Rather than sagging from your arms and feet, you stabilize your middle section. You’ll feel strong but also light and graceful.

Start on all fours, with your wrists under your shoulders and wrist creases parallel to the front edge of your mat.

Step one leg straight back, grounding all the toes; step the other leg back.

Hold for several breaths, letting your awareness grow and a sense of energy fill your whole being. Move out of the pose by bringing the knees back down onto the mat and stretch in whatever way feels comfortable and relax for a few breaths.

For a stronger Plank Pose, imagine you are a dancer being lifted lightly into the air by your partner. If you don’t engage all your muscles, you’ll become dead weight and your partner will struggle to hold your limp body, it’s the same in Plank. If you sag from your arms, the pose is a struggle. Instead, engage your core and you’ll be able to hold the pose with much more ease.

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With a combination of Eastern and Western massage, Cherish the Body offers neuromuscular therapy, sports massage, trigger point therapy, myofascial release, deep tissue, relaxation Swedish and visceral massage for pain management and relaxation in a quiet and calming private studio.